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Pokemon Part 2

Perusing a few of the posts regarding the nature of the Pokémon franchise in the past week has compelled to me to make another post regarding the series (namely this & this). A sentiment rightfully held by the fans of the games is that the series main formula isn’t exactly broken, so there’s no pressing necessity to overhaul the mechanics, aesthetics, or just general premise of the game. The only one of those I personally take issue with is the last, as Daniel’s opening paragraphs signify a collective will amongst many Pokefanatics:

“First of all, Pokémon is primarily a competitive video game – a rarity in RPGs. Like a sporting event, it occupies the same space as StarCraft, CounterStrike, and most fighting games. It’s easy to eventually notice that those games don’t change a whole lot over the years – each sequel isn’t really a next level, but just a fine-tuning of existing mechanics.”-Daniel Sims

Pokemon Phenomenon

It’s kind of hard to be a gamer (specifically a Nintendo fan) and avoid Pokémon. Sure, it’s possible to having a genuine disdain for the games, but I very rarely come across those people who just flat out don’t like the series. Either they’re indifferent to it from not spending any time with it, or they’re avoiding it out of some pseudo-hipster ideal. My personal trend of individualism and ‘passive ambition’ strikes my stance on this series with full force. I’ve never paticularly been bloodthirsty enough in any type of traditional competition, mostly because I always become bored after a certain level of skill or refinement is passed (i.e. I detest being proficient at most things). Where Pokémon comes into play here is why I’ve never been able to get on the train with battling and the likes of the card game (I’d much rather watch people play when it comes to that type of thing).

Video Games as Art Part 2

Movies, books, games — each do their own thing in very different ways. Personally, my vision has been skewed ever since picking up a controller and my personal hierarchy has been the same since I was 6 years old. I hold books and literature tantamount to video games; this is followed followed by music, which is then followed by movies and theatre. Though games will typically come first for me, written literature has always served as a basis for any form of narrative to ever show itself to the world; I will always be compelled to acknowledge it as the genesis for anything that has truly been great in entertainment. Film (the bastardized form) has always taken a back seat in my mind because it caters to the lazy and unappreciative audience that pours money into it. Games have the perfect opportunity to fall somewhere between the two. Contextual density however, should see a rapid increase over the next decade at the very least.

Doctrine 3 Consumerism

Consumerism

con·sum·er·ism [kən s mə rìzzəm]

1. protection of consumers’ rights: the protection of the rights and interests of consumers, especially with regard to price, quality, and safety

2. materialistic attitude: an attitude that values the acquisition of material goods(disapproving)

3. belief in benefits of consumption: the belief that the buying and selling of large quantities of consumer goods is beneficial to an economy or a sign of economic strength

We live in an amusing place, built on rules granted by pseudo-objective stances and contradictory natures. I’ve constantly alluded to my own personal weariness with the videogame industry’s reliance on both consumerism and commercialism. However, I will admit that it is part of a necessary system where we’re all meant to be a mitigating factor. Though there’s an ideal (or is there?), the drive to achieve a goal of satisfaction is seemingly embedded with various factors of emulation, perversion, and adulation. A core consistency behind the notion of consumerism is how we all attempt to simulate those ‘above us’ on the social hierarchy [emulation]. Before then, many simply become lost in eking out their own class to the most ostentatious extent [perversion]. Some even go on to acknowledge those ‘above us’ by providing them with the illusion that they actually deserve a higher rank in society — be it through talent, wealth, or general exposure to certain media outlets [adulation].

The Entertainment Industry, A sexy delicious death

Our dear ”Entertainment” has continued to progress into an extremely impressive means to convey experiences between the generations. In order to grow however, they’ll have to expand their “definitions” to match their own overbearing weight of versatility. This of course means that a plethora of notions and concepts that most gamers are already familiar with—will have to change, plain and simple. The medium has “suffered some luxuries” however and that’s what I’m here to talk about today. There’s three topics titling this blog (which I think are the most withered aspects for us), but there’s five in my head that act as pleasing ideas for the bulk of the gaming populous (not to mention the human race). These are…

1 – Birth
2 – Nourishment
3 – Sex
4 – Propagation
5 – Death

I’ll be presenting these topics with dual strikes on both fronts. First will be the symbolism they represent for the medium and the other will be a literal translation, governed by how typically they present in games (generally speaking of course).

Violence in Video Games

Sorry for the late posting readers, I got sidetracked with an excellent game, that I recently completed and reviewed at Triforce-News.

This weeks topic is violence in video games. (The italics without the bold text is my thought process for this article)

Violence in real life is terrible; violence in the movies can be cool. It’s just another color to work with.”

-Quentin Tarantino

“What exactly was 2009?”

“A year of identification as a gamer?”

“Does that really mean anything? You could just as easily say classification, which is all kinds of irritating, classifying gamers is so — three years ago.”

“Well think about it, the only thing we even remotely played this year was The Path, and we didn’t even finish it in a context worth writing about yet.”

Space Odyssey Game

[About two weeks ago, I decided to make a short series of posts examining science fiction films for gaming purposes (I started with Ridley Scott’s Alien). More specifically, this is designed to create a set of analytical dissections for something that games could use to their advantage in current times. The downside for this of course, is that I have to sit films beside games once again (a practice that’s becoming boring by my own standards). The positive to take away from this though, is that my pairing of the two mediums here isn’t meant to emphasize a superficial comparison (as it usually does), but a profound sense of creative corollaries.] So I chose an even older film for this second entry, Stanley Kubrick’s 1969 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Doctrine 2 The Education Theory

Ok so I know I said I was going to have 2001 a Space Odyssey up, but since that is almost completed but not yet I felt I should post the second Doctrine of Video Games

People often disregard the amount of education imparted on the mind by a video-game. In many accounts, one could make the argument that a game’s ability to educate could be a formidable opposition to the vast majority of modern schooling. Of course, I’m not suggesting that games are an exemplary replacement for acquiring knowledge; I am however suggesting that it fills the otherwise cavernous holes in people’s individual academic edification. By the “numbers argument”, it’s still a mandatory necessity that we all experience schooling as it generally is now. This educational experience is defined by having mounds and mounds of acquired human intelligence (gathered across our trivial time on this rock) slammed against our intellectual walls. This in turn will play some part in the definition of our scholastic character, as a great chunk of those things will simply have stick to the damned metaphorical wall.

Control of the Player

[Playing Modern Warfare 2 a bit more over the weekend has brought me back to the topic of critiquing the degree of control I have in the game as a player. When I speak of control, I mean the privilege that any gamer is granted in terms of mechanics, context, or perspective.